posted at 4:15 pm on March 30, 2011 by Allahpundit

Grain of salt here: The scoop comes courtesy of lefty Greg Sargent, who has an incentive to push the “Republican schism” storyline on which his post elaborates. Even so, he’s not the only one reporting today on a split between Boehner and Cantor on how to approach budget negotiations. And he’s not the only one alleging that the GOP leadership — or, at least, Boehner and Kevin McCarthy — are chatting with Democrats about a possible compromise bill.

“If we stick together and keep the pressure on the Democrats, we’re going to win this fight,” Boehner told assembled Republicans, according to the source. “We’re gonna kick their ass.”…

Here’s what’s happening, according to the source: The essence of Cantor’s disagreement with Boehner is that Republicans should not be starting with that number in talks with the White House, and that they should be starting with a higher level of cuts, beause starting at $30 billion ensures that they will ultimately get less — which will be unacceptable to conservatives. Cantor does disagree with Boehner over how deep the cuts should ultimately be, but a more important point of disagreement is over how to handle these negotiations…

Here’s where Boehner’s “kick ass” quote comes in. Republican aides believe that Boehner is closing in on a $30 billion deal with the White House. They think he’s using rousing language before the caucus to signal to conservatives that he’s drawing a hard line in talks, partly because he knows that ultimately those talks will likely yield a deal that will be difficult to sell to them. Signaling a real fight now could make that sell easier later.

I don’t understand either part of that. The White House knows that Boehner’s under intense pressure from tea partiers to stick to the $61 billion figure that the GOP pledged to cut. That pressure is the only reason Democrats have come up to offering $30 billion or so; realistically, they have to meet him at least halfway or he’ll be forced to walk away. So they are starting at a higher level of cuts, and the White House will probably have to come up further towards that level to make this compromise remotely feasible. Likewise, the tough talk about “kicking ass” won’t mean jack to tea-party freshmen if/when Boehner comes back with a package that falls short of the $61 billion mark, regardless of what it consists of. That’s precisely why he’s reaching out to Blue Dogs, of course — because he knows that plenty of freshmen will walk away from the deal and he’ll need to replace their votes in order to pass the thing. (In fact, I wonder if the “split” between him and Cantor hasn’t been contrived as a sort of good cop/bad cop play for the benefit of the base, to reassure them that their deep-cutting interests are being represented in the leadership even as that same leadership inches towards a compromise.) The “kick ass” line only makes sense if he’s trying to gird them for battle on the truly important budget to come, the one for next year that’ll finally finally finally tackle entitlements. I.e. “let’s get this year’s small-potatoes budget off the table and then kick their ass where it counts.”

Via RCP, below you’ll find Boehner at this morning’s presser urging Reid and the Senate to pass a damned bill of their own already so that both sides have some cards on the table. Why won’t that happen? Quote:

Democrats call the suggestion that they simply bring their proposal to the floor unrealistic. Without a deal with House Republicans, the plan would not pass the House. Additionally, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., according to GOP aides, is following Boehner’s lead. GOP aides say McConnell and Senate Republicans will back a bill if Boehner and House Republicans will. Senate Republicans are also unlikely to provide the seven votes Reid would need to pass his own bill without House GOP support.

If Reid gets a bill through with seven Republican votes, it’ll only weaken Boehner’s hand by proving that there’s bipartisan support for cuts below the magic $61 billion number. So passing the damned bill is a nonstarter; the only potential starters are (a) a shutdown or (b) negotiating a damned compromise with the White House, if/when President Present ever decides he’s ready to engage.

The White House and congressional Republicans edged closer to a spending-cut deal Wednesday as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) directed House Appropriations Committee staff to begin negotiations with their Senate-side counterparts.

The move suggests the two sides have agreed on a top-line number, as the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), has said consistently he would not initiate talks unless a figure had been settled on.

They won’t say what the figure is but an aide will say that they won’t be discussing the House riders related to Planned Parenthood, etc. Since it’d be insane to reach a delicate deal on the budget and then have it implode over a stalemate on hot-button issues like that, I can only assume that Boehner’s planning to strip the riders out if need be and then force a vote on them as separate bills.

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Hey, no sneezing at the prospect of an additional 31 bil in cuts. I, for one, would like to be able to tell my grandaughter one day that because we won in 2010 she gets to work a 17:59 work day for our Chinese overlords as opposed to a full 18 hours.

Obama’s tiny nuts are still an order of magnitude larger than John “Crybaby” Boehner.

At CPAC – this guy promised, with a “read my lips” statement – that the GOP would cut $100B and NOT … STOP … THERE.

The next week – he passed a budget with only $61B in cuts.

And now he’s going to compromise in the neighborhood of $30B.

R . O . T . F . L . M . F. A . O !!!

What a damned WEAK player!

And hey Allah – who would be the seven GOP votes who would pass a Democratic budget proposal in the Senate? Oh yeah that’s right – Scott Brown and the usual RINO suspects. So glad we have them onboard our train!!

I love how all these damn politicians don’t bat an eye when they spend a trillion here or a trillion there but go full retard bat sh^t crazy on these EXTERME END OF THE WORLD single digit billion dollar “cuts”.

Our annual budget is just over $3 TRILLION dollars. That is a 3 with TWELVE zeros behind it. The worse part is, we borrow 40 cents for every dollar spent. So we are borrowing somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 trillion dollars in this fiscal year.

I figured out what 61 million dollars is, relative to this budget. Remember out of 1,000 dollars spent, we are borrowing 400 dollars. The cuts they are arguing about are only TWO CENTS out of every $1,000 in this budget.

They are arguing about TWO CENTS for every $1,000 they are spending!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe to the idiots who are intent on worrying about “how it looks to the voters/donors” and are completely ignoring the simple fact that we are in a fiscal hole of irreparable proportions.

Congress can argue about this all they want, but in the end there are only two options: 1) shut down all nonessential functions (keeping the lights on and the shores defended) including all the perks Congress keeps for itself or 2) the end of the United States.

Boehner, McConnell and all the big talkers won’t face that, so they are, by dithering and talking endlessly, complicit in what amounts to economic treason.

I don’t get what the heck is going on here. Why are Boehner and Cantor playing games with us??? What is cutting 30billion supposed to do since as someone pointed out were in the whole 8 billion per day?

We need to clear out the rest of the GOP if possible or just go ahead and start talking c i v i l w a r! I’m sick of this!

If Boehner does a deal here for less than $61B – he needs to resign as speaker immediately after.

This guy promised at CPAC (in February) … “Next week we are cutting $100B and we are NOT stopping there”. He lied. The next week he went in and passed only $61B in cuts – then LIED again by claiming it was $100B in cuts (by “inventing” $40B in additional cuts from Obama’s IMAGINARY budget during the lame duck session).

And now – because he’s deathly afraid of taking a hit if the government shuts down … he’s going to cut a deal for less than $61B and probably closer to the White House’s $30B.

Game … Set … Match … Boehner – YOU LOSE.

It’s time for him to resign if he doesn’t get every penny of those $61B in cuts the GOP house passed!

It was $100 BILLION that the GOP (at least the GOP candidates we supported) pledged to cut: not $61 Billion!!!

…and the number should be closer to $610 Billion!!! Our debt is growing by $8 Billion per day!!!

landlines on March 30, 2011 at 4:26 PM

Depends on how you spin it- $60 billion compared to the 2010 budget, or Obama’s proposed budget?

They could also argue that broken down monthly, it represents over $100 million in cuts.

In any case, with the Dems holding the Senate and White House, the GOP is limited in what it can do. This is why elections and majorities matter- if not for the GOP taking the House, the Dems would’ve passed yet another spending increase.

Besides, the difference between $60 billion in cuts and, say, $30 billion is little more than a rounding error compared to the $3 trillion dollar overall budget. Take what we can get now, and focus on the 2012 budget and elections.

Who can even tell what the numbers mean? Is $1 cut in actual cut as in 2012 will be $1 less spending than 2011?

Or is it $1 cut as in we were going to increase spending by $10 and now we’re only increasing by $9, so we cut $1?

Or is it we were going to increase spending by $12 then we decided only $11 then upped it to $13 and now we’re back to $12, so really we saved another $1 even though we’re still raising spending by the exact same amount before the cut?

I don’t think Boehner or Reid or Obama or anyone for that matter has any clue what any of these numbers really mean.

It was $100 BILLION that the GOP (at least the GOP candidates we supported) pledged to cut: not $61 Billion!!!

…and the number should be closer to $610 Billion!!! Our debt is growing by $8 Billion per day!!!

landlines on March 30, 2011 at 4:26 PM

To be fair, the pledge was for the 2012 budget. These guys are still cleaning up the 2011 mess left by Pelosi. I really am beginning to believe the Dems are playing rope-a-dope with the GOP using CRs. By the time we’re done, we won’t have time to work on 2012 and we’ll start another round of CRs.

They cut 6 billion on the same day we borrowed an extra 70 billion…. Now they are talking about major cuts of 60 billion????? Hmmmm, maybe we do need a third party. Maybe we need to kick the Rep butts and the Dem Butts out of office!

They cut 6 billion on the same day we borrowed an extra 70 billion…. Now they are talking about major cuts of 60 billion????? Hmmmm, maybe we do need a third party. Maybe we need to kick the Rep butts and the Dem Butts out of office!

jeffn21 on March 30, 2011 at 5:34 PM

Yeah! Let’s form a 3rd party comprised only of True Conservatives, splitting the Republican vote and thus giving the Dems a permanent majority. That’ll show ‘em!

The move suggests the two sides have agreed on a top-line number, as the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), has said consistently he would not initiate talks unless a figure had been settled on.

It friggin’ better be North of $60B….I’ve pretty much had it with this squish.

The Blue Dogs’ support of ObamaCare removed all doubt that they are anything but different colored Yellow Dog Democrats.

RJL on March 30, 2011 at 5:44 PM

Eh, the Blue Dogs – the ones that are left – probably ARE likely to side with the GOP, if only because at this point, the only way they’re going to continue to survive in Congress is if they put a bit of distance between themselves and Granny Pelosi.

But look, I covered this in the headline thread earlier today. Senate Democrats want to force a shutdown, because they know that if they DO get a shutdown NOW, it imperils Republicans for the entire 2012 budget battle that will come later this year. They’re counting on being able to demagogue the issue to hurt Republicans if a shutdown happens now, and the sad fact is, they’re probably RIGHT. People keep saying, “well, this is different than 1994!” Only slightly. The only difference is that at the moment, blame would be split kind of evenly between Republicans and Democrats, but do you honestly think that will change in FAVOR of Republicans? Never. Underestimate. The media machine. It’s essentially destroyed Walker and the WI GOP, in the short term at least, even though polls showed that the public there AGREED with the general concept behind Walker’s reforms on CBR.

So unless Boehner is doing some sort of good cop / bad cop act with Cantor (which is possible, but I’m not sure), he’s trying to get some bipartisan support for this next proposal so that he can use it as a railroad spike in the temple of Schumer, Reid and all of the other d**chebags in the Senate. It will become somewhat less possible for Senate Dems to reject as “extreme” a House bill that has a significant number of their House caucus signed on to it.

The total liabilities of the United States government, including future social security and medicare payments that the U.S. government is already committed to pay out, now exceed 65 TRILLION dollars, which is more than the entire GDP of the whole world…

… and the people responsible for this are quibbling over a few Billion, playing politics, and calling any responsible financial decisions “extreme”.